Hello everyone, i'm looking to get into skydiving and want a place where i can pound out as many courses and as many dives as i possibly can. i currently live in seattle and the weather has started to turn hear so i need to go south to get to better weather. I have about 7 months before i need to go back to work and money isn't a real issue(cheaper is always better though). I am able to travel out of the country(have a ton of experience backpacking to random places) if its tempting enough, i would kind of prefer to stay in the united states just because i can ride my motorcycle there, but like i said i am very open to going anywhere.

You have MANY good options for winter jump training in the western USA. You should shop around the DZs in California and Arizona for sure. There are many variables to consider:

-Cost -Weather -How is the "fit" for you there (how does it feel as a social environment). -Training methods available. -How busy are they at mid-week? So you can build jumps after you are off student status. -Proximity to a tunnel (optional, but cool).

Of course, there are other places which might have good weather for you: Houston, TX and Florida come to mind immediately.

Have fun!!!

Regarding wingsuiting & BASE. I am not the person to give you advice on that. However, I suspect that if you go to http://www.basejumper.com/ you will find lots of good advice on that. My guess is that you will find that the experience needed to do what you want is much higher than you may expect.

You have MANY good options for winter jump training in the western USA. You should shop around the DZs in California and Arizona for sure. There are many variables to consider:

-Cost -Weather -How is the "fit" for you there (how does it feel as a social environment). -Training methods available. -How busy are they at mid-week? So you can build jumps after you are off student status. -Proximity to a tunnel (optional, but cool).

Of course, there are other places which might have good weather for you: Houston, TX and Florida come to mind immediately.

Have fun!!!

Regarding wingsuiting & BASE. I am not the person to give you advice on that. However, I suspect that if you go to http://www.basejumper.com/ you will find lots of good advice on that. My guess is that you will find that the experience needed to do what you want is much higher than you may expect.

any specific places in cali you can suggest?

and from the research i've done wingsuit base jumping will take allot of jumps before hand(at least 200 just to get to the wing suit), like i said i have the next 7 months to work toward that goal, hopefully enough and if its not then im off work again next August so hopefully i can get there within a year if i work hard, we'll see how motivation goes though!

Perris, CA if you really want to bang out jumps. They have a fleet of planes and lots of big ways all the time and do a lot of military training jumps so planes are going up very frequently. Plus they have a bar.

from the research i've done wingsuit base jumping will take allot of jumps before hand(at least 200 just to get to the wing suit),

Keep in mind that's 200 skydives to get to wingsuit jump #1. Then you need to make wingsuit skydives #2 thru #200 before you're 'good' with a wingsuit.

Base jumping is seperate from skydiving, so you also need to make base jump #1 thru #200 before you're 'good' at base jumping.

So in reality, you need 400/500 skydives and 200 (or more) base jumps before should be mixing wingsuits and base. Also, a bumch of those base jumps should be big wall jumps because that's where you need to be to wingsuit base, so that means 50-100 of those jumps will need to be in Europe.

Might take more than 7 months.

That aside, head down to southern California. Perris and Elsinore are both big, busy DZs where you can make a ton of jump, and they're only 20 min apart. Go visit each one, and check out the school. Pick the one you like better, and get your license. Then spend the rest of your time fun jumping between the two DZs. Perris has a wind tunnel in the parking lot if you need it during your training, and you can use even if you're training over at Elsinore.

Skydiving today is very common and very safe. Even wing suit skydivng is easy to get into. Lots of people do it every day around the world. However, base jumping is a big step into a very different sport. It involves a big commitment to the risks involved. People die doing it, often. Then you add a wing suit to that, whew, you've got a whole different world again. It is going to be a huge mental and physical step to begin down that road.

Don't worry about that now. Begin skydiving and do it for the insane fun that is skydiving. Then when you get to 200 jumps, decide if you want to try a wingsuit. Take everything in smaller steps. There is a lot of fun to be had on the way. These aren't just stepping stones on your way up. Each of these steps is actually a vast world you can spend a fulfilling lifetime on.

Just realize that and enjoy it. You're not going to jump out of a plane for a 3 minute wingsuit ride down around the clouds all while thinking to yourself, "God, I can't believe I have to do 76 more of these dumb things before I can finally move on to base. Lame......"

Wow it sounds like you are literally in the exact same position as me. I've got months before I need to go back to work & money stacked up. My ultimate goal is Base Jump as well.... I started at skydiveAZ last week. And it's a pretty sick place to go I'm also living at the dropzone in the bunkhouse . Check out their website they've got different package plans depending on how much time and money u want to spend. And it's sunny skies all year round With some of the best instructors that have 10,000+ jumps. One of my instructors had 15,000 jumps.